


Liberal-Minded

by PlayfulMay



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5629471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayfulMay/pseuds/PlayfulMay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is made to deal with his feelings for Phryne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberal-Minded

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during "Blood at the Wheel" after Jack ushers Phryne out of his office, and before the much more promising end to the episode.
> 
> Thank you to projectcyborg for helping me figure out how to post the image!

Jack sat with his head in his hand. His elbow resting on the bar.

There was a sort of mumbled noise just outside the establishment which grew louder and then quieter as a crowd passed by out front. Jack sighed, glad he could be alone to wallow in his misery. Just him and the bartender Arnold to exist in comfortable silence in the dim surroundings of Jack's favorite bar. He liked its quiet atmosphere, along with the fact that it drew a simple sort of crowd - working men looking to unwind with a drink or two and then leave. It was a quiet place.

"Drownin' your sorrows at five in the afternoon?"

So much for quiet. Jack sighed to the sound of that voice: Digger. It was a nickname for how the man so often dug into others' personal business. Mostly unwelcomed.

He was an acquaintance of Bert's, and Jack rolled his eyes at that bar that he had ever saw to it to introduce himself to the menace.

"I think they call it evening," Jack grumbled, doing his best to sit up and appear as though he hadn't been wallowing just moments before. "What do you want, Digger?"

The man beamed at the name - wearing it with pride for some reason or another: "I wanna know what she's done this time."

The toothy grin had Jack steeling himself against an easy frustration. Instead, he placed the intruder with a glare and said nothing.

"What?" Digger laughed, helping himself to the seat beside Jack's to slap his knee with humorous delight. "That woman's got your bits in a vice, don't she?"

"This guy botherin' you, Jack?" the bartender, Arnold, asked with both palms leaned from the other side of the counter.

All Arnold needed was a reason to throw Digger out, but he had a feeling Jack wouldn't be so hot-tempered. Even when annoyed.

All eyes were on Jack, but all he could manage to do was look down at his hands and think about the fact that Phryne had gone out with another man.

"He can handle it," Digger insisted, watching Arnold angrily busy himself elsewhere.

Jack was lost in thought when Digger spoke again.

"Come on - what's she done now? Another bloke?"

Jack's angry eyes singed Digger with a very purposeful zeal until Digger threw up his hands in apology.

"Alright alright ... I can just ... kinda sad seein' you all pathetic-lookin' when you could go find yourself any other pair'a legs."

"Look, I don't want to talk. Will you just-"

"Tell me what brought ya in here this time, and I'll quit askin'."

Jack figured that one answer wouldn't be so terrible, so he leaned back in his chair, and kept his fingertips at the lip of the counter: "She's out with someone else. That's all. She has every right to do what she pleases."

Digger suddenly saw an awful lot in Jack that reminded him of his much younger brother.

"Liberated woman, eh?"

The absence of any answer was answer enough.

"Well, there's nothin' wrong with that! Women havin' what men have - that freedom and the sort."

Jack nodded despite himself. It was the very same notion he had repeated to himself when he wondered just what on earth he was doing having feelings for a liberal-minded woman like Phryne Fisher.

"Yeah ... ain't like there's a perfectly good gent waitin' for 'er or nothin'."

Jack's eyes dropped to the bar, rushing over his fingertips to try and keep himself together. Do not become emotional to DIGGER of all people. He couldn't let someone see how much Phryne's personal choices really DID affect him.

"I wouldn't mind either ... her stretchin' her wings. It's gotta be good for 'er. She probably has just as good a time with them anyway ... mmm?"

Jack wanted to cry - he could feel that sensation hit his nose, and he straightened up at the thought, speaking through clenched teeth. "Will you quit helping me?"

"It's not like I'm suggestin' you go over there and show her what a mistake she's makin' or nothin'."

Jack stood and let out a very exhaustive sigh: "I will do nothing of the sort."

"Of course not - she can make her own choices. It ain't like you wanna see it for yourself or nothin'."

"I thought I LOST HER just the other day - I will remind you to think about the implications you're making, because your humor is lost on me."

As Jack stormed out to leave, Digger watched him with an affection in mind for his older brother. A thoughtful man that just needed to be pushed into making a change in his own life. Something told Digger Jack wasn't entirely different.

After Jack had left the building, he blew a breath out from his cheeks, and continued storming all the way back to city south station. He stormed everywhere, in fact, during the rest of his shift. And once he was off, Jack drove back to his place with one short detour. A very accidental stop in which he slid out of his car, threw back his head, and braved himself for something that needed to be said.

He braved his way all the way up to the front of the Wardlow, where he saw something that cut his courage to the ground. There in the window was Phryne, in all of her enthusiastic beauty, in the arms of another man. Jack wanted to bring his hand up to his chest as suddenly he could hardly breathe, but purposefully kept himself stiff in case of onlookers. He reminded himself to breathe as he watched Phryne throw her head back with laughter Jack could hear faintly from the walkway. He watched as Phryne leapt up and was caught with her legs around the man's waist, kissing him.

Jack couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe at all, and he couldn't think of anything except the very real possibility that someone might catch him faint helplessly there by the front porch.

Police officers didn't faint. They succumbed to shock at all hours of the day, and yet none of that compared to the surreal sensation of falling that hit Jack right in the heart. He felt like shouting - anything to release the frustration and sadness inside - but instead turned himself around to his car. To sit inside of it and remember how to breathe.

He had done this - pushed her into the arms of another man. If not by his stern sensibilities, then by his emotional reactions to the mix-up at his crime scene. He had pushed her all the same to be entertaining some strange man in her parlour at such an ungodly time of night.

He had done this, and yet it was being done to him. His heart was being ripped from his chest - he was sure of it. First, he had thought she was dead. Next, she was making it very clear her personal freedom extended into the wee hours of the night. Without him.

Jack calmed himself so he could drive home - shutting and locking the door behind him to let go the frustration of the day. Dropping his head in his hands again - in the privacy of his house - and letting go at last to lonely tears.

And though Jack would never have changed Phryne for the world, the more she spread her wings outward, the tighter he curled himself in.

 

        


End file.
